This invention relates to a method and apparatus to help Internet users communicate with hearing and speech-impaired individuals while such individuals are using a Baudot-based device.
In an effort to make the benefits of communications technology available to everyone, regardless of any disability that a particular person may have, most communications carriers offer a service called xe2x80x9cTelecommunications Relay Servicexe2x80x9d TRS for short. In essence, the service allows sound-impaired persons, i.e., hearing- and/or speech-impaired individuals, to communicate with each other as well as with sound-unimpaired persons using special user-based devices and customized network-based facilities. User-based devices typically used by sound-impaired persons are Telecommunications Devices for the Deaf (TDD), better known as Text Teletypewriters (TTY). Such a device is a specialized terminal with a keyboard on which text characters are typed for conversion to tones using well-known Baudot-format. A TTY device is generally coupled to a communications line that carries the tones across a communications network to a corresponding TTY where the tones are re-converted to characters that are displayed on the screen of the corresponding TTY device. Force of habit and governmental subsidies that help defray the cost of each TTY device have made such device the preferred communications device of the majority of sound-impaired persons.
The customized network-based facilities that serve sound-impaired individuals are either Operator Services for the Deaf (OSD) or Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS). The OSD facility relays text communications back and forth between TTYs being used by two sound-impaired individuals. The TRS facility permits conversation between a sound-unimpaired individual and a sound-impaired person. Such conversation is generally facilitated by a communications assistant who types the speech signals received from the sound-unimpaired individual for delivery to the TTY of the sound-impaired individual, and correspondingly reads the text data that is received from the sound-impaired individual, for delivery to the telephone set of the sound-unimpaired individual.
The active participation of the communications assistant in a conversation between a sound-impaired user and a sound-unimpaired person, although beneficial, is nevertheless expensive and intrusive. The relatively high cost associated with the participation of a communications assistant in the conversation is due to the fact that an assistant must be dedicated to each conversation. Although the cost of providing TRS facility is typically governmentally subsidized, sound-impaired individuals fully realize that, absent the current governmental generosity, the mere existence of universal communications service for the sound-impaired may be in jeopardy.
In response to this problem, some network designers have proposed the concept of implementing Speech-To-Text (STT) and Text-To-Speech (TTS) conversion technology at the TRS platform. Unfortunately, while TTS technology has been successfully implemented in a wide variety of applications, STT technology is still in its infancy due to a variety of technical issues, including problems related to vocabulary independence and speech recognition for signals transmitted via communications lines. Furthermore, sound-impaired individuals tend to use some idiomatic expressions that are not easily recognizable by the general public and that are not easily adaptable to existing SST systems.
Sound-impaired users have long complained about the lack of privacy in their conversation with sound-unimpaired persons due to the active participation of the communications assistant who is in effect a non-invited, albeit needed, eavesdropper to a private conversation. Thus, a problem of the prior art is lack of an intruder-free, affordable, universally available system to provide communications services to sound-impaired individuals
We have realized that while the vast majority of sound-impaired individuals use TTY devices for their telecommunications needs, a significant number of sound-unimpaired communications users who place calls to sound-impaired individuals are Internet users.
The present disclosure is directed to a communications system that allows Baudot-formatted text data from TTY devices to be carried over the Internet after such text data has been converted to the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) required for communications over the Internet. Analogously, TCP/IP packets that originate from a sound-unimpaired Personal Computer (PC) and that are destined for the TTY of a sound-impaired person are received at a server on the Internet where such packets are converted to Baudot-formatted text data for delivery to the TTY of the sound-impaired person.
In an embodiment of the principles disclosed herein, a sound-impaired person wishing to communicate with a sound-unimpaired person directs a call and associated call setup information to a TRS platform. The call setup information includes the telephone number of the desired called party, i.e., the sound-unimpaired person. Upon receiving the call setup information, the TRS platform launches a query to a database that maps the called party""s telephone number to the IP address of the called party. Upon retrieving the IP address of the IPS server, the TRS platform instructs its protocol conversion server to access a commercially available web site to ascertain whether the called party is presently using the Internet. If so, the called party is alerted to the presence of the call from the sound-impaired person. Upon receiving a signal indicative of the willingness of the called party to answer the call via the Internet network, the TRS platform establishes a two-leg virtual connection between the called party""s PC and the TTY of the caller, i.e., the sound-impaired person. The first leg of the connectionxe2x80x94a circuit-switched connectionxe2x80x94couples the caller""s TTY to the protocol conversion server while the second leg of the connectionxe2x80x94a packet-switched connectionxe2x80x94couples the protocol conversion server to the called party""s PC. After the two-leg connection is established, the TRS platform separates itself from the connection.
If the called party is not currently using the Internet, the TRS platform places a conventional call to the called party urging such party to establish an immediate Internet connection to the protocol conversion server. When such connection is established, the TRS platform bridges the caller""s TTY to that connection and drops out of the loop.
When a sound-unimpaired caller wishes to communicate with a sound-impaired called party, the caller can either place a conventional TDD call or an Internet-TDD call. If the call is a conventional TDD call, the call is completed to the TRS platform, which delivers an announcement to the caller to inform such caller that an Internet call to the TTY user would afford the caller more privacy at a cheaper rate. The announcement also communicates to the caller the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the Internet-TDD website on the protocol conversion server. Thereafter, the TRS platform completes the call in a conventional manner. If the call is an Internet call, an Internet connection is established from the caller""s PC to the protocol conversion server. Once the connection is established, IP data packets received from the caller are converted to Baudot format characters at the protocol conversion server before being forwarded to the called party""s TTY. Correspondingly, Baudot-format characters received from the called party""s TTY are packetized in conformance with the IP protocol before being forwarded to the Internet caller.
Advantageously, the present disclosure eliminates the need for sound-unimpaired persons who communicate frequently with sound-impaired individuals to purchase a TTY whose use is dedicated to such communications.